Since Cricket Bread has been steadily moving towards a life narrative and away from a local-food documentary, I decided it was time to change the look of things.  I will still do a lot of commentary on food issues, but it seems that there will be much more discussion about home construction, work, Quitter, etc..  I hope to do more photo stories as well, similar to the posts about farm tours.

Posts may take a bit longer in coming as I get settled into my new Internet-less home at the end of this month.  I intend to be heavily involved in the sustainable scene in Chatham County no matter what, so there should be plenty to share with all of you.  In the meantime, let me know what you think of the new layout.

By the way, the image header is supposed to rotate when you refresh the page…

Photo by schlag!

Trying to stop leaks on an old rotted house is an interesting process.  Figuring out where to start is also interesting in that I don’t really have much experience doing shingle roof repair.  I worked for a year doing tear-offs and replacement roofs on power plants and a Corning facility, but that did not prepare me to do flashing on chimneys or replace asphalt shingles.

It took me an entire day just to replace two sides of chimney flashing and repair the shingles that I had ripped up around it.  All the old flashing was just a pile of rust.  It was held together by layers of decaying silicone caulk and fragments of termite digested wood.  There was also a nice helping of orange spray sealant foam that served no purpose except to develop holes and hold water in those holes.

I had to use extra roofing tar just to fill in some of the brick joints.  I will mortar the rest of the chimney when I get a chance but just wanted to get the thing to stop leaking.

The other side was a horror show of four layers of shingles and a half dozen previous repair attempts.

This repair is anything but pretty but it is sealed and tight.

In new house news, we marked out the lines with our builder Malcolm Duff.

Hopefully the construction will start in a few weeks.

Every time we go out to the land, we learn about a “blue million” new things.  This last weekend we learned about the elaborate trail system through the woods, where the natural springs are, where the home site is where our 77 year old neighbor, Don Buckner, was born.

We learned that that same neighbor was featured in a Chatham County Herald article in 1980 where he talked about doing some of the same things we are about to get ourselves into.  The article was all about organic agriculture, resource conservation and energy effeciency.  Windmills, solar hot water, woodlot management… Sound familiar?

In what is sure to prompt some interesting comments and letters to the editor, an article in the Wilmington Star News just came out featuring my partner Kristin and some other folks from Be Your Own Hero. While the writer of the article, Si Cantwell, starts off with a quick sprinkle of the bomb-throwing cliche, it is for the most part a straightforward review of what BYOH is all about.

The anarchism behind the local Be Your Own Hero movement is about decentralizing leadership and giving everyone a say in group decision-making.

…

“I think everybody is an anarchist, to some extent,” (Kristin) Henry said. “There are things they can do every day that are positive and community oriented, that are from the heart.”

Staff photo | Paul Stephen